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TSA pulls plug on 'naked' body scanners

The TSA will pull 174 X-ray body scanners out of airports because the manufacturer couldn’t program the machines to stop producing near-naked images of travelers.

The Rapiscan “backscatter” machines use a small dose of radiation to see through clothes and can produce detailed images of the body underneath, drawing criticism from privacy advocates that the scans were too revealing.

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Of the three Washington-area airports, only Dulles International Airport in Virginia uses the backscatter machines, according to a database from nonprofit ProPublica.

Congress had set a deadline of 2012 that was later extended to May 31 requiring the scanners produce only generic body images, such as those from another type of scanner, which employs “millimeter wave” technology to create a picture more comparable to a stick figure than a photograph.

Those scanners will remain at airports.

TSA said it was merely complying with the congressional deadline, not addressing the privacy concerns — or complaints that the radiation from the machines represented a health threat to travelers.

But privacy was definitely on the mind of Rep. Bennie Thompson, top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. He said TSA’s decision came “because the machines do not comply with congressionally mandated privacy standards which required Rapiscan to obscure the exposed images of passengers.” Thompson also wants to ensure that the pulled scanners don’t end up back in use somewhere else in the government until they are updated to no longer display the near-naked images.

After deciding that Rapiscan-maker OSI Systems couldn’t meet the deadline for producing the software needed to make the generic body images, TSA moved to end its $5 million contract and pull the machines from use.

The agency said it will yank all 174 X-ray machines currently in use by the end of May and replace them with “millimeter wave” machines in the busiest airports.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has questioned how TSA got the scanners in the first place — and if they even work. “Public and expert comments were never solicited and never taken into account before the TSA began purchasing and deploying these machines,” CEI’s Marc Scribner wrote on the group’s blog “It remains to be seen if they are at all effective in reducing risks to air traveler safety, let alone if these potential risk reductions justify the privacy-invading airport security policies that the United States foolishly adopted after 9/11.”

After a public outcry and a number of ProPublica articles looking into health concerns, TSA partnered with the National Academy of Sciences to look into potential health effects of the Rapiscan scanners.

The study will focus on “whether exposures comply with applicable health and safety standards” and whether TSA’s screening process is “appropriate to prevent over-exposures of travelers and operators to ionizing radiation,” according to a contract notice.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 6:40 p.m. on January 18, 2013.